Thursday, November 25, 2010

Salve,
English travelers' accounts of their voyages during have of the XVI-XIX have been great source of information for this blog, my friend Radek found some interesting account of the 1770s uhlan regiment, serving as a household unit of the King of Poland:

Ulans or Uhlans for the King The king has a corps of 2000 troops in his own pay, and entirely dependent upon himself. These troops consist chiefly of Ulans or light horse, who furnish alternately the escort which accompanies his majesty. We saw a small party, about thirty, who were encamped near his villa, and had afterwards an opportunity of examining them more minutely. The Ulans are chiefly Tartars, many of them Mahometans, and are greatly to be relied on for their fidelity. The corps is composed of gentlemen and vassals : they all form in squadron together, but are differently armed ; they both indiscriminately carry sabres and pistols, but the gentlemen only bear lances of about ten feet long ; instead of which, the others are armed with carabines. Their dress is a high fur cap, a green and red jacket, pantaloons of the fame colour, which cover the boots as low as the ankle; and a petticoat of white cloth descending to the knee*. Their heads are all shaved after the Polish manner. Their lances, at the end of which is fastened a long swallow-tailed flag [pennon] of black and red cloth, are shorter and weaker than those of the Austrian Croats, but they carry and use them much in the same manner, and with no less dexterity. The men were of different sizes, and seemed fine and well-grown, but were greatly disfigured with their petticoats and pantaloons.
Polish horses for light cavalryThe horses on which they were mounted. were about fourteen hands high, of remarkable spirit, with great strength of shoulder. Poland is much esteemed for its breed of horses; and the king of Prussia procures his light cavalry from this country.
On the ruin of the Polish horses

The breed, however, has been almost ruined during the late civil wars*, and the nobility are now chiefly supplied from Tartary.

Coxe, Travels vol1 (page 140)
* I intend to draw and paint several reconstructions of these Royal Uhlans (ulans) - pan Bronislaw Gembarzewski premier military uniform historian from Poland seen in this relief B.Gembarzewski , in his monumental work 'Polish Soldier - arms and equipment' vol II has some interesting reconstructions and cites sources for the Royal Uhlans, from 1770s through 1794.
*Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth under the Saxon kings was subject to increasing Russian influence during the first half of XVIII century, and after the last Polish king, Stanislaw August Poniatowski S_A_Poniatowski - his election at Wola was subject to some paintings showing Polish horses eg Election_of_Stanislaw_II_August_of_Poland_at_Wola muzeum w Poznaniu , was elected with full support of the Russian army bayonets, coercion and money PLC become Russian protectorate. Enraged patriotic elements of nobility declared a confederacy (at the ancient fortress of Bar in present Ukraine) and civil war erupted, but it has to be stressed that quickly the Polish-Lithuanian royal armies had been replaced by the Russian forces that had battled Bar Confederates troops for 4 years - wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Confederation
The end of Bar Confederacy resistance spurred three black eagles: Russia, Prussia and Austrian Empire cease the moment and to take some defenseless Polish-Lithuanian territory. Russia received the least developed areas but Prussia took the ethnically Polish territories of northern Poland and begun infamous Prussian robbery of Polish-Lithuanian foreign commerce profits and in the end caused the economic strangulation of the country (including counterfeiting Polish currency and imposing huge tariffs on PLC agricultural exports and other commerce), while the losses to Austria were painful because they took some of the best cities ( the Royal city of Lwow-Lviv, returned in 1918 to be again stolen from Poland in 1939 and 1944 by the 1st class world murderer and genocidal tyrant J. Stalin ), most populated areas of the country, including the horse breeding areas of southern Poland - it was the so called First Partition of Poland wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Partition_of_Poland

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Salve,
Last month I visited the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and came across some Mustangs (aka wild horses) that had been captured by the BLM (Bureau of Land management) and sold of at a public auction.

Horses in these pictures come from Nevada and Wyoming, captured at a tender age of 1 year (yearlings), and since then have been living in a green pasture close to Elicot, Co. Note that until the summer the gray gelding had been a stallion.

In these pictures you can not see clearly but they do have the BLM freeze markings and I will add some more where they are visible.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

I added double reins and a curb-bit (Polish. munsztunk) on a horse, made horse's neck a bit longer; on the officer - a longer beard (hope you like it better, Kadrinazi), and then some other little equipment parts that make this soldier appear more 'historic'
pa ka

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Salve,
today a little too forgotten painter of the Munich School of Polish painting:
Władysław Szerner agraart.pl szerner , born in 1839, studied art at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts beginning in 1862. Unfortunately for his studies one year later, when Motherland called, he, a very promising artist, joined the Polish army during the 1863 January Uprising http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Uprising . As we know the January uprising ended in defeat and pan (Mr.) Szerner was forced to emigrate after the defeat to France and eventually settled in Bavaria.
After studies at the Munich Art Academy - with various German masters, Alexander Wagner, Hermann Anschütz and Alexander Strähuber, he became an independent artist, and his atellier was next to the famous one of Jozef Brandt, and these two Polish artist became fast friends, especially because they shared similar interest in Polish history and genre paintings. Their freindship lasted for life and Pan Szerner often traveled with Brandt to his estate in Oronsko, near Radom, and partook in Brandt's excursions to the Old Polish Borderland aka Kresy (Ukraine). Being a member of Munich Kunstverein kunstverein-muenchen.de , he exhibited there from 1874 until 1909, as well as in Lwow(Lviv), Cracow and Warsaw. He was admired by many literary personages of the XIX century Poland, eg J.I. Kraszewski en.wikipedia.org Kraszewski prized him for being able to capture scenes of Poland's countryside au naturel, with believable detail and with joyful flavour so characteristic of these picturesque sites .
He not only painted horses and the images of Old Poland, but also was a skilled graphic artist and draughtsman, and was able to copy in pencil many famous paintings by his friend Brandt so they could be engraved and printed in various contemporary periodicals, eg 'Kłosy' and 'Tygodnik Ilustrowany' of Warsaw, to the delight of many a reader.
Later on he started painting the 'exotique' and wonderfully colorful inhabitants of the eastern Carpathian Mountians - the Huculs (Hutzuls).
His art is in many private collections, and his works fetch reasonable prices at auctions. He had a son, also a painter, and their quite similar works can be subject to forgeries, as father's works are more expensive nowadays.

salve,
todays image came about when I was looking at the paintings of the Polish XIX century painter (and the XIX century Munich School of Polish painting main persona) : Jozef Brandt, whose horses, from the Old noble Polish Ukraine, were splendid creatures of legend and reality, both at the same time :)
a nice display of 'mosci' Jozef Brandt's art - pinakoteka.zascianek.pl/Brandt

This the effect of my 2 hour afternoon study in digital brushwork - Mypaint and Gimp PS, great open source software for Linux Ubuntu.

'

ps
a little peek at the horse and military art on the Internet:
by chance I found this fine artwork of Spanish military history painter (uses acrylics and watercolor) Angel Garcia Pinto and his blog. I must say that Señor Pinto's blog is a splendid display of his gorgeous historical illustration - angelgpinto.blogspot

the next artist's brushwork is fantastic: he hauls from Catalunia (province of Spain) and he is the most exceptional painter of horses and Spanish XIX century military history - don Augusto Ferrer Dalmau - arteclasic.com

Salve,
this past July there was 600 anniversary of the battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) and Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian victory over the Western European knights and Teutonic Kinghts.
I started working on this piece a while ago - it is far from finished, perhaps too far. It purports to show a Lwow banner 'ensign' mounted on his faithful 'dextrarius' aka English language 'destrier' - I am not going to refer here to the Wikipedia page on the subject as it is not a good entry.

Salve,
some native Amerindian themes, I hope to do many more in the future, especially Cheyennes (I admit I have been looking at the XIX century Cheyenne Ledger art) and Comanches and Utes (been lately to a old battlefield place where more than 160 years ago Comanches and Utes fought, and 240 years ago Spanish-Apache-Pueblo expedition was crossing the Continental Divide searching for the Cuerno Verde's Comanches)

Friday, November 19, 2010

Salve,
this one is reworking of an old sketch into a new image, this time he is going to be a Ottoman Turkish cavalryman or .. well, whether an akinci, delier or sipahi I do not know yet. Time period XVI century CE.

Salve,
I am working on this little animated one, this time i cannot decide what kind of weapons to give to this fellow - a kozak cavalryman (not a Cossack) or Polish-Lithuanian light rider. Wearing a zupan, bare-headed, with his bow and arrow, and faithful sabre... the rest it is still to be seen

Salve,
a bit of improvement work on this old painting that has never been finished - purports to show Gallic horsemen of the second half of I century BC.
Hopefully I will finish this one and another that shows a horseman hunting a wild boar

About Me

Czołem/Salve, fellow net traveler... I am Dariusz aka Dario and this is my meydân. Born in the year of the Fire Horse hence I never tire of admiring, drawing & painting or sculpting horses, or just researching the history of equus cabalus, especially in the mounted warrior context. My drawings and paintings - prints - are available for sale (I use MyPaint, Krita & GIMP), I also do commissioned illustration etc, so if you need to contact me regarding a purchase, commission, or any other matter, do email me: darajawausz[at]gmail [dot] com
Ciao - Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas